Content marked with a * in oncoming chapters indicate trigger warnings.
ELIJAH MIKAELSON
October 9th, 1820
I can't even begin to think what it was he saw in her. Conceivably, it was the overwhelming stench of challenge and the lovely tinge of a runted and sickly reynard in her agave-coated English was enough to spin him out of control. Niklaus could never resist a self-imposed damsel.
Jezebel Zaragoza, come to find out, was actually the polar opposite of a wounded cub. She was the firestarter, holding the match at all times but never admitting the fault. To recognize faithlessness on first glance is near impossible, even for my family. So, her tale here began quite dire and bitter.
After a late night at the playhouse, I and my two above-ground siblings took the back streets towards the abattoir we'd moved into, afresh of troubles. Rebekah on both our arms, we took to the playful deconstruction of every moment of inferior acting that both King Claudius and Horatio had clung to for that particular production. Niklaus had seen it more times than the rest of us; for, he and Kol used to be avid fanatics of Shakespearean poetry and storylines.
"No, no, no. You can't improvise such lines! That's why Ectadiné's productions fail to surprise," rued Niklaus.
"'One can have the smile of a villain'—it's almost correct and means the exact same thing. Might I suggest finding a new deadcrush other than an aboriginal man who kills off every screen-child he creates?" Rebekah laughed in reply.
Of course, he'd never let anyone tarnish a single sentence of his favorite play. "'One can smile, and smile, and be a villain', Rebekah! It is entirely too important to juxtapose!"
"For God's sake, it's not even one of the main lines!" I remarked after my third time hearing this rant.
"Right, right," Rebekah rolls her eyes, elbowing me gently in the rib as she continues to mock him. "His 'words fly up, his thoughts remain below: Words without thoughts never to heaven go'!"
We exchange gracious smiles in the grand event of each other's company. We hardly had nights such as those anymore. What with the constant bickering in the house and are almost never-ending travels to keep father guessing—it seemed as though we were without each other in our own home, in our own city.
When Rebekah realizes she's lost Klaus's arm, her head swims around like she's lost her glass slipper.
He was standing but ten feet behind, watching war-faced beauty of a ship float beside the eastern dock in our harbor. El Grito, the side of the mid-sized ship read. The trimmings spoke of meso-american origin, and the pale green flags fearlessly wagged high in the air as if in surrender; they demanded more attention than necessary.
"Well, well," Klaus visibly has an idea by the flash of his arms crossing. "As it seems, we won't have to deal with the governor's heinous excuse for an afterparty feast in the end."
"Niklaus, we still agreed to make an appearance," I sighed. "Perhaps, save it for the walk home. We need not bloody our Sunday best."
Of course, nothing rings louder in Niklaus's ears other than the little devil sitting on his shoulder—or, our sister's delicate voice. The only lass he'd ever promised to give anything and everything if she pleased.
"Oh, come on. When was the last time we had a family dinner, just the three of us?" Rebekah chuckled, walking Niklaus's exact footsteps.
Weekend nights tend to be my freedom from their nuisance personalities, but— What's the saying? If you can't beat them, join them.
Overenthusiastic and still rocking through his third glass of whiskey, my brother politely helped our sister aboard, and playfully, near knocked me over the lip of the deck. With an air of irritated beginnings, I posted a stiff index finger in front of his face to warn him of the chances he was taking.
The ship had fallen silent. That's how we knew it wasn't ever supposed to be here.
Before Klaus could lift the hatch down to the crew's quarters, a young Latin gentleman flipped it open and quickly walked up on us to block our lingering curiosity.
"Perdón, my crew is trying to sleep. We'll board by daybreak. Señor..." he tries to stop us.
Klaus snickered, hands folded behind his back as he leaned into the boy's face, "Really, well, we were just in the neighborhood. Hoping to have you and your crew join us...for a little dinner."
By the look on the young man's face, "dinner" was no foreign concept to his like. Dinner was not generously offered by toothy wolves like our brother.
"I want a burly one," Rebekah decided. "Particularly, the most handsome."
Niklaus wagged his finger at her, side-stepping to look past the young man.
"Patience, sister. The pickier we are, the less likely we're to enjoy ourselves," I huffed, stepping forward. "Now, young man. It will be particularly easy on you to...just send a few of the crew members up here who will not be particularly missed. And...do pick a handsome one, at my sister's behest."
Rebekah's grin was glowing, incredibly pleasured by the look of confusion and fear on the boy's face. She claimed to derive her adrenaline from it each time; this was true of each one of us. Yet, it was like I said once before when Klaus was (unsurprisingly) disregarding my lecture. It's a parsimonious individual that vampires need to be wary of. It is no supernatural luxury to be a step ahead.
With loud, self-speaking footsteps, Klaus and I descent down into the dark of the cabins and wake a hoard of livestock and sleeping women, children. There were no men but three. Women, dirty in the face and up in the arms of their eldest sons. Children, orphaned or displaced from their nervous mother to remain in the shadows, waded by barrels of water and seeds in wait for the next part of their lives.
"Wakey, wakey! I can't believe you were all planning to leave without bidding us adios! How incredibly rude, now, you at least owe us some explanation. Or some entertainment. Get a move on. Everyone out!" Klaus gleefully raised his voice.
Like ducklings, he handpicked the ones who shook, who didn't understand a word of his, or who were ready to fight back. He claimed to be a connoisseur of blood type and females always seemed to have the best. Less of a chance of the blood having a tobacco tinge, I suppose. Of course, children were left to wait and see what their fates held, by Rebekah's request. She'd not see her brother kill the innocent. That was all good and righteous. But Niklaus had no quandary doing so behind her back.
"Since I'm feeling generous, Sister, you can have first pick," offered the smiling Klaus.
Moaned Rebekah, "Mm... What about the rest of them?"
The ones that she couldn't have were the females. Most glared, decided her a traitor to her sex. Men knelt, eyes down or up at us cursing us with violent colloquial whispers.
"Well, they may watch and help me burn down the vessel when we're done... Or they can trade places with the leftovers should they present a valid case."
He teased the chin of one woman, barely on the cusp of eighteen and clinging to her serape as if it were a curtain between her and him.
Rebekah circled them all, touching one teenage boy's hair, then cruelly knocking a beautifully embroidered hat off a quivering older man's head. She tickled the back of a veiled widow's neck. It became evident where I was wrong to engage in their form of fun at this point. I didn't seen any luggage, belongings, means of possession in that ship. These people had ripped up their roots; they had tried moved on in the span of a night. This was just a dot on their map of a long road ahead. They were trying no harder than us when we left our home in the dust centuries ago. The vicious deity of empathy within me came rolling in. I now wanted to stop. Klaus would pout, Rebekah would go to the Governor's supper with a spoiled attitude and drag the idea of her union to Emil in circles around Klausuntil he snapped. Luckily, not a word from me had to be spoken.
Rebekah finally picked the most pathetic woman, disregarding Klaus whining for her. The woman who sobbed a Spanish prayer. Rebekah exfoliated her prey with the initial grazing of fangs on her neck.
The click of a loaded weapon made her stand straight and let go of the woman. Out of the corner of my eye lie the gorgeous shine of an outdated firearm in a pair of tiny hands.
Klaus nonchalantly turned around, a challenging leer on his face. Looked as if we'd missed one.
The girl, no older than eighteen, regarded us with her incredibly mean-spirited countenance. She reaked of dried blood and the stains of sulfur on her face were streaked by clear signs of dried tears. Nonetheless, she was stunning in the most sublime way. Her complexion had the tinge of raw amber honey, freckled by little brown dots; she was a zealot of sunlight and it showed even under the pale moon. The syrupy hair on her head reminded me of a sheep's overgrown wool. She wore a heavy trenchcoat with compliments of red that matched the embroidery of marigolds on the dress she wore without a bustle or train underneath.
"You're convinced that you know what you're doing with that impish toy?" I scoffed.
She didn't speak, nor look me in the face.
Klaus turned to her in full, hand on the tip of the gun and planning to push it away. She let him approach, eyes fully engaged with his.
The boy who had tried to block us from his precious cargo tried to step in between them, panicked for her more than the others.
"No, please, don't hurt her. You can't—"
"Mantente fuera de esto," the girl quickly demanded of the young man.
"Smart girl! You should stay out of this!" gaily, says Klaus, turning his torso to push at the boy's chest.
I held the young man out of the way for him. Those who had been onlookers relied on the girl's distraction in order to scurry back to the boat and hide. Rebekah disappointedly watched them go, knowing better than to follow should her Marseille-imported skirt be splattered with her own brain.
Continued Klaus, "Clearly, she has a desire to die or...at least, hog my attention—"
He touched the ends of her heavy tresses; I knew that'd be something that would get to him. Something about the virginous patience of uncut hair was one of his biggest weaknesses.
As it emerged, she wasn't bound to one language.
"Three bullets," she warned him, "Two are white oak. Take your chances. If you don't get one, your friends will."
The very threat made Klaus slowly withdraw his hand from her dark void of ringlets and stifle his hunger for a moment longer.
"What did you say?" Rebekah frowned, feeling as though she'd extrinsic daughter then aimed the gun at Rebekah.
It was from this, we learned we were not alone in the world of being untouchable. She knew her resources and she was acquainted with what killed and what didn't. Still a question reigned for many years: Who gave her those white oak bullets and how did she know when to use them?
"Alright, alright," Klaus leveled his tone to a much calmer volume.
For defense, he rose his hands. He'd only surrender for those two bullets.
He requested through gritted teeth, "Let's not be too hasty. Just tell us. Where did you get the white oak from?"
"We won't hurt you if you relinquish your weapon to us," I promised.
She was in no position to believe me after we'd tried to make a meal of her friends. But "friends" was a strong word. With our backs turned, the young captain had retreated to his ship whilst we dealt with the young woman thriving on a lack of sleep and possible headcold that drove her rough breathing. Quickly, he withdrew the rickety old boarding plank while looking the poor girl in the eyes. I could see him bidding her an apology. She was going to be stranded here with us. A fierce tigress suddenly turned into a lost kitten; a fire into dusty glitter.
While distracted, Klaus made a grab for the weapon. She hit him across the jaw with its wooden mag, remembering her situation. She shot it in the air with Klaus curled over beneath the loud sound.
"Get the fuck away from me," she howls. "Now!"
When her glance met mine, I was overwhelmed by a sharp hue of pale jade in her left eye. It didn't correlate to the faded brown in her right eye. One was her sanity, the other her mania. And if the brown was her mania, it was not restricted from bleeding over into the corner of her jaded left. I grabbed Klaus's shoulder, drawing him back. Of course, Rebekah was still less than charmed. Without a window for reaction, the phobic girl is defeated by the pain and quick draw of blood from Rebekah's fangs.
Rebekah spat it out instantaneously. The girl fell to the ground, dropping the weapon.
"Gah!" Rebekah groaned. "She's drugged. Something's wrong with her!"
It was no cause for any mercy. Klaus grasped the gun, emptying it quickly as if he believed the girl would wake. I rush to Rebekah, who covered her mouth as she doubled over.
"Vervain... It has to be vervain," she croaks. "That smarts..."
"Let's go. Leave her. She can die from the cold," Klaus panted. "We need to burn these. Now."
JEZEBEL
October 11th
I read a poem sometime before this day. It said, "If the entire world suddenly hid our elders away, children would run the world; and little would be different." At first, I wondered how this could be. Children are always born with new ideas, new ideas about living. But quickly I realized adults, too, live in the absence of their elders. They know what they were taught to survive, and their children reap the spare energy their elders have. And finally, I knew what it was that made this poet speak. I was in the Americas without my family, penniless, friendless, but not hopeless. I was born a hunter-gatherer. But there was little that bought me given the new problem I was about to encounter.
According to the papers, today was October eleventh in the year eighteen-twenty. The closest concept I had to having eaten or drank something last was November thirteenth, eighteen-eighteen. If I was right, someone had to have put me on that boat while I wasn't conscious—two years ago?
Regardless. A pair of ranchers found me near the trade ship ports that morning and offered me a bed for the night outside the city. I was visibly sick, and their youngest son was studying to be a doctor. If he could exercise his learnings on me, surely, he'd do better in university.
The host's wife adjusted the set of blankets she'd laid out on the floor of her bedroom, every now and then looking at me to see if I was still conscious.
"Where were you headed?" she asked.
"...I don't know," I generally responded. "I mean, I don't remember."
She nodded as if she could comprehend it. "Must've hit your head good enough last night. And you're far too lovely to be traveling alone. Perhaps, I can convince my eldest to escort you to the nearest export pier in the East. He's done it time and again for others..."
Her eyes strayed to a small cabinet on the far side of the room. There were several random items, such as a toy rabbit, a man's coat, a pair of badly vandalized Bibles, and even a cracked statue of the Virgin. They must have not belonged to them.
"We always assume someone will come back for them, but...I know they won't," she lamented. "Times were far different before my boys."
I shook my head softly, putting an extroverted hair from my braid behind my ear.
"So long as he has some sort of cartography I can use, I can get there myself. I don't want to be—"
My tight hand across my mouth and a throat blocked by vomit stopped me from finishing.
She grabbed my arm, almost to support me as I hastily rose from the bedside.
"There. There!" she warns me, pointing directly across the tiny farmhouse hallway.
My knees crashed into the side of the tub as I regurgitated a barely-there heap of my last meal. I must have had a concussion of some kind, after all. I was awake enough to know the girl who'd bitten me wasn't kind enough to cushion my fall last night.
"I'm sorry," I panted into my arm as my female savior cradled my shoulders from behind.
"...Listen to me. If you're in any kind of trouble..."
"I'm not," I panted. "I just want... I need to leave this place fast."
A heavy knock comes at the door while we're going back and forth on the matter, and it isn't until the sound of a male's groan enters the room via echo that we stop talking to listen. There's silence. No talking, no nothing; not when we just heard a decently loud knock.
Puzzled, Mrs. Miller gets to her feet and brushes off her skirt. "Forgive me, dear. I should see who's come for a visit."
She disappears while I'm still slumped over the tubside, wiping my tongue and trying to swallow away the disgusting taste in my mouth.
"Frank!" I caught the tinge of a shriek, and then, there's another heavy thud.
My lip peeled over the side of my hand, my body frozen in place. The silence is excruciating. I should go out there, I assumed. I should...I shouldn't. I decide to help myself up, quietly walking out to the open parlor on the main floor of the home. There, in the tricky little hallway with all its bends and claustrophobic wallpaper, I equipped myself with a fire poker meant for the Millers' bedroom fireplace. They must have forgot to put it back by the hearth.
"There you are!" the green-eyed vampire grinned his wolfish teeth at me, his hand around the Miller boy's bloody neck. "I've been meaning to have a chat with you."
KLAUS
She didn't let go of her pointy defense, standing against the wall for the first fifteen minutes I'd been in the house. I was well dismayed by her lack of nerves to threaten me today versus the night beforehand. Though, I wouldn't will it. She was a lean little thing—like a greyhound who'd drank out of a bayou marsh. I waited for her to come forward, blabbering excuses or explaining herself for threatening me with an empty gun. That's correct. It was empty the whole time. She wasted her last bullet on the blasted stars.
That meant she was told by someone else the legend of the white oak tree. But who? That'd be one of my first questions.
She must have been slightly shocked to find a vampire in her midst. I wouldn't traditionally be allowed in without the homeowner's final say. Fact of the matter was that the Millers' land belonged to the state and its republic, which made it a neutral ground.
Mr. and Mrs. Miller were piled on top of one another like empty dinner plates in front of the fire mantle. Their eldest son's wrist was in my mouth, slowly turning blue much to the disappointment of my hearty appetite. She was turning green again, letting the fire poker fall from her hand with a janky collection of clinks. She took a seat the small table in the corner, where the couch would cover my platter of meatless bones.
"You don't have to kill them," the girl belatedly said. "They didn't hurt you, I did."
Too little too late. I hadn't seen Mr. Miller's fingers twitch in quite some time.
As I dropped Mr. Miller's delectable wife from her limp seating on my knee, I watched her roll to the ground; I jovially lift my arms in their bloody sleeving.
I rejoined, "Nonsense, darling! It's lunchtime. Now, you seem more reasonable than the night prior. I am glad we have a second chance to have a small discussion about that white oak."
I patted the couch beside me, but she wouldn't move from her ghostly corner.
"Oh, come now," I sighed, walking over to join her. "I don't bite as hard as my sister. Very clever, by the way. Fueling yourself with vervain on a long journey. You never know what sort of pirates you'll be dealing with, hopping port to port like that."
She didn't refrain me from sitting close, her arms piled like measly logs on top of the tea table. "What are you talking about?"
And by her expression, I suddenly conceived vervain was not a part of her preparations.
"Well, surely you meant some sort of defense against the greater powers on your journey."
Her eyes, glossy at the bottom lids, traced the room like a possessed doll.
Admitted the lass, "It wasn't real white oak. I lied. You impeded me...you scared those poor people. There's little else I could have done."
Delaying the pull of Elijah's stolen handkerchief from my pocket, I wiped my mouth.
"All in good fun. Do you genuinely believe that was worse than what they could be facing at sea? Starvation, influenza, robbery, drunkards, tight spaces, et cetera?"
She ripped the handkerchief from me, throwing it past me and leaning over me angrily.
"You come in here acting like you have a right to be upset with me, but look at me. You stole something from me. You tried to steal from them. There's a word for fools like you, señor. I will let you know that you have one fucking choice here and that's to apologize. To me!" she spat, pointing her deft claw at me.
I smile, "I apologize that you found it so urgent to call my bluff rather than aborting your post on your watery steed." I'd done it. I'd flipped the woman's switch. Her chair flies out from behind her in a fiery rage, her hands around the collars of my Spanish silk blouse; the closer she gets, the more humidity swells between us on the hottest day in Louisiana. I dared her hand with a tempting gleam. She was about to bite. How I loved a woman with an intense vigor to spite me. But I see it in her face as something changes. She lets go of me, shaking her head with more control than her whitened fists. Her eyes redden, they branch with red twine. She doesn't cry for my insolence or for herself.
"Don't drag me down whatever spiral you live in," she swallowed. "There's only room for one."
She lets go and she leaves me, walking on slow feet towards the next room over.
I watched her feet barely creep up past her heel as she walked. There had been the source of the dried blood I'd smelt on her last night. Her feet were browned by deltas of cracks and a sharp object's penetration. Whatever did that to her was the reason she could barely quake in my presence. She'd been drilled down by fear and now she was a nail in a floorboard shooting out to the other side, freed of commitment to fear's splinters.
With her back turned like that, I could have struck. She'd be one less worry in this town. But unlucky enough for myself, she'd peaked my interest.
She sat down in the kitchen, the back door opened and emitting gold and green light from the open yard where gnats frolicked amidst the dead plants on the corners of the makeshift porch. She was pulling every towel from the cabinets, every absorbant in the house that would stop the mass leakage of blood in the salon.
"I admire your intensity," I complimented. "You know, I myself find a lot of my time dedicated to protecting what's mine. My family. And when their lives are threatened at the hand of a juvenile, no matter how trivial or impressive it may be, I have to ensure she doesn't try it again. Who told you about the white oak?"
She sat on her knees in front of the cupboard, staring into the darkness and mold beneath the cuisine area.
"I don't know. I just do," she vaguely responded.
I exhaled calmly, deciding to kneel beside her, snatching away the rags. She regarded me harshly for it, the mutation between the colors of her outrageously round eyes like a whelp denied its reward.
I proposed, "Do not forget, I have the ability to make your stay fairly difficult for you."
She tries to catch my fingers in the crevice of the cupboard and its door, but I pull away fast enough to save their nimble nerves.
Retorted the unyielding dame, "I can make this difficult for you."
"A rather doubtful thing to say when I could see she was running from something. The first thing I notice when I look at you, Sweetheart, is your eyes, I thought. They're riddled with anger, frustration, dare I say—issues of your own making. Regardless of who or what you are, or how innocent you may be...you'll only become a villain the longer you act like a victim. "If you say a word about white oak," I tell her aloud, "to anyone or anything you intend to come in contact with, certainly, you can understand I'll have to scoop out that nasty tongue of yours."
Upon my tart grimace, she stared. She stared until the silence left me to wander the cleaned freckle-detailed dew on her cafe-au-lait cast. Her papaya lips, their corners and frame casted a darker brown than the middle. Her curly darkest-brown head, extending to her rounded, skinned elbows. She stared I was unable to look at such agreeableness anymore.
"We're going to go in there and you'll clean up your after yourself. Then, you may leave with my promise to never speak of it again. Or to you, for the matter. That's my price," surprisingly, she bargained in a much calmer tone.
I was stunned, almost ashamed. She regarded me with such disappointment—something completely different than the experience of someone's hatred. It felt familiar; not as painful as Mikael's, but something along those lines. She wouldn't raise a hand to me, but she was also visibly tired of dealing with my type. The disappointment was flavored like aged scotch combined with a spoon of honey. It was a strange combination; but not pointless.
She split the rags evenly, looking upon them grudgingly, as she left me squatting by wooden cabinets.
Those tortured feet caught my gaze again. I still remembered the feeling of mine when we first fled Mikael, cleaning them of blood in even filthier rivers and straits. Scars never formed, I healed quickly. The iron tickle of knives in my heels never went away.
"What is your name?" I asked her. "I should know the name with whom I share a binding pact."
She turned her right side to face me, gazing over me.
"It's Jezebel."
REBEKAH
October 12th
Rustling in the middle of the night. The offkey drumming beat of footsteps above my head went back and forth like a militia's parade. I sat straight up in my bed, my beloved Emil stirring beside me and beckoning me with a somber arm to stay under his arm. Holding the sheet to my chest, I exhaled roughly and brought my robe down off my head board.
"I'm parched," I muttered, kissing Emil softly on the mouth and departing the bedroom.
I tied my robe around my waist and sauntered down the hall towards the door of the garret. It was probably Nik. He was the family insomniac and a master of night terrors. Sometimes, he would go through his things, relive his old memories, and smash everything to pieces. That's how we lost a lot of fine china and chandeliers, of course.
The space was directly above my chambers. My room was once Nik's, but he complained about the smell it casted from leaks, summer mold, and the dead bodies he would hoard up there for days. We became bored of it; now, he had the master.
A body hunched over a dusty teal chest wriggled like larvae in the imprinted shadow of moonlight coming down from the high lone window we still didn't know how to close.
"Nik," I scolded sleepily.
My brother was caught off guard, turning to me with wide eyes and a face drained of color. Yet, I found I had the wrong brother.
"Kol," I gasped. "What are you doing? We haven't seen you in months!"
Not nearly as felicitous in seeing me, he proceeded to struggle and swim through centuries of our riches. Out behind him came old sketchbooks, clothes, jewels, horse reigns, unopened liquor, and other casual possessions.
"Stay out of this, Rebekah, go back to bed," he whispered frantically.
I crossed my arms softly, stepping towards him.
"Instead, you should give me an explanation before I call Nik and Elijah."
He wouldn't stop. He wouldn't listen. Coming up on one of his diaries, he lit up like a firefly there in darkness, flipping through it and moving his lips without sound.
I raised my voice, "Now, Kol!"
He shushed me, getting to his feet.
"What part of 'stay out of this' do you misunderstand? Can't you just trust that I'm not here to cause damage?"
"Your history of a hunger for attention speaks to say otherwise."
"Rebekah, a life is at stake. A life that needs my help, and if I let her down— I might lose everything. Can you understand that?"
"Kol, I'm your sister. Whatever is happening, I can help!"
"I know. And I know you would try..."
I take his shaking hand in mine.
"Sometimes, we are not the best of friends, not the best of siblings. But we love you, Kol. I do," softly, I console him.
His eyes full of shame and fear underneath the thick locks of hair fallen from his neatly pulled back style.
"You want to help?" murmured he.
I squeezed his hand with a loving smile on my face, believing I might be able to make him stay. I am sorely disappointed.
"Well. You never saw me."
I let go of him, shoving his hand back at his side.
"But—"
He was visibly irritated by my constant talking or just sorry he'd been caught. He grabbed my arm, threateningly squeezing with ten times the force I'd used on his much bigger palm.
"Kol...you're hurting me," I protested.
Then, he ruined our reunion with a charmingly facetious grin and lets go of my arm, defensively putting up his hands.
Quietly, he simpers, "Don't worry. This is just a dream, is it not? If it's all the same to you, I'll be on my way. I love you, Beks."
JEZEBEL
I decided it was better to leave before the Millers woke. I'd stopped their bleeding in the best way I could; and with the vampire's help, they'd not remember a thing.
I left a note regarding one of their horses I planned to ride through Texas and back to Mexico. I could forward the horses back to them once I made it. I just couldn't keep going without knowing what happened to family and what put me here.
The winds were picking up, sweeping around leaves and dirt like small tornadoes all over the ground my distracted stallion insisted on trotting through as we went.
I felt the ribbon holding my braid together slowly slip away, relinquishing my untameable locks to the dampening whirlwinds and atmospheric sounds of thunder.
My stomach began to turn. I wasn't sure if it was hunger or if I had contracted something on the boat. Choosing to stop and let myself off the motion-sickness trap that was riding bareback, I let the horse graze on the side of the road as I wandered down the road, breathing in and out, and took some of the cold air into my lungs. Hunkering over, I started to wonder if the weight in my stomach was enough to make me plunge two fingers down my throat. I had never felt like this before. Something was different.
Raising my head to check for any oncoming carriages or wild animals, I noticed a very thin white object peeking out from the silky field of wild grasses beside the horse. It was a lawn cross, one with little pink roses painted on it to mark the grave of a little girl.
I'd seen it before. Twice, actually. Twice that day. In fact, I must have rode by wild grass that morning a number of times.
I wasn't sick. I was under the influence of magic. Someone or something was trying to keep me in.
Realizing I'd been going in loops for the last few hours, one last inhale shot up into my throat and gagged me.
Still, I prayed I was just hallucinating or not getting enough air.
Mounting my horse again, I rudely pulled its head away from its snack and kicked it as hard as I could into a running start.
Five minutes passed. I hadn't gotten a sense of deja vu after seeing that field; not until I saw the road turn into a sharp curve of cypress trees and lead me directly back to the Miller farmhouse.
The horse habitually slid into a stop right in front of the paved path leading to the rickety emerald front steps.
Dismounting, I lightheadedly danced on two bare feet. My left wanted me to go back in the house and possibly meet my oppressor. My right wanted me to stand out in the open where a witness could find me.
Something landed on the back hem of my hand-me-down prairie dress, forcing the neckline to shoot up towards my collarbones as two strong hands grabbed me from behind and pulled me away from the house.
A dark-haired man, different from the one before, panted in my face with a furious sense of urgency.
"I knew it. You're stuck in here, too!" he declared.
"You. You know who's doing this?" I questioned.
"What are you talking about?"
"The vertigo spell I—can't reverse it if I don't know who's doing this!"
The boy paused, nose wrinkling confusedly upon my complaints and lack of eye contact.
"...You don't know who I am, do you?" He mumbled.
"Should I!" I legitimately thought.
"...Dammit. Dammit!" He huffed. "It doesn't matter. Hold still!"
He clutched my forearm, his hand so much bigger than my own that his thumb and and ring finger could meet atop its tender anterior. My eyes fazed into a starry static that passes over into a zoetrope of images.
It was a brooding wooden door, with hinges custom shaped to resemble griffins. There were vines, flowers, and fruits carved into its surface, almost like a design on fine china. My lungs stopped taking air, punished by the warm and blunt inhale of dust I couldn't cough out. I was panicking in a muffled way, and then I felt the sweaty touch of cotton on my mouth. And then I realized the sighs and drownings of pain were coming from the other side of the door.
A ripped white shirt on a faceless body emerged from behind the door, the stranger's hand holding something gold and swinging swiftly.
I tried to pull away, thinking I had all I needed to know. This boy was responsible. In one way or another, he was the reason I was here.
The brown-eyed, hog-browed vampire still managed to shove a wrist full of blood into my mouth and nearly choke me with its disgusting flavor of rotten fruit and rusty copper.
Clamping my mouth shut with brute strength, I had no choice but to swallow before I turned blue.
Letting me go, I fell to my knees in the mud and tried to force two fingers down my throat. His wet strands of chestnut hair began to seep out of their ribbon binding as he hunkered down and pinned my arms on either side—just like the vision.
"I'm sorry. You know that," he muttered.
Pulling a dagger out of the belt around his burgundy waistcoat, he raised it to the grey, stormy sky and planned to strike.
"Revertum," I cried out.
A rivet of heat released from my skin and visibly infected his armed fist. His hand suddenly thrusted, not into me or my person, but into his own heart. Mouth agape and pretty eyes near out of his sockets in shock, his hold on me loosened. He drizzled into a grey state of living and lifelessness. He fell face flat into the mud, right next to my over-exhausted and unconscious self.
CELESTE
Death was a fine look on the girl's face, though, it had not come nor knocked even once. The death was in her fantasies, pouring out through her eyes and her restrained, limp ligaments. Her eyes would not meet ours; I'm not sure they could manage to make us out beneath the layers of jiggling tears on top of her ceiling-directed irises.
Pressing a wet rag, fresh out of the pot on the room's fireplace, to her forehead, I pulled away the dark miniscule curls from her ears.
"You did the right thing. He was going to hurt you both," I murmured, running my hand down her shoulders with enough pressure to warn her of her error. "But next time, I trust you'll move on with as little contact as possible. Like you should have."
She mutely spoke, "Who are you?"
Blinking away bulging snow globe tears, she rolled her head back towards me. Alexis and Parayah entered the room, cleaning her legs off and sterilizing their own hands in the scalding pot of water.
"Who are you! Where are the Millers?" Jezebel swallowed, keeping a close eye on the two.
I pet her hair, slowly cupping it down on my lap.
"That depends. I can be a real godsend to you, Jezebel, or I can make things harder than they have to be," I told her. "Bring her the pale there."
Parayah brought it forth, setting it beside Jezebel's headroom. The girl's eyes followed Parayah all the way out the small bedroom door, the swing in its heavy wood panels taking the time to slowly close. With all the footsteps echoing throughout the house, Jezebel got to thinking. "What do you want from me?"
"The Millers will be away for the meantime. We need ample space to ensure you're in an environment where you can live safely for the next few months until Carmila arrives," I softly explained.
The question sounded more like a question of how we got through the protective barrier she placed on the house before we arrived. I sensed it the second we walked through. Likewise, she had to know those spells can be broken if the Millers were more than just "away."
"My mother? She's coming?" With a childlike gleam of curiosity, she wondered.
"She's already here," I smiled, placing a gentle hand on her belly. "In a home of her own."
My hand was slapped away, and her head ripped from the restrictive band my other palm created over her head. Standing before me, she covered the bare stomach which was in the beginnings of protrusion.
"What are you saying?" She raised her voice.
Three of my Seraphs came back in, filing around the back of her and I next to the bed.
"How do you know my mother! Answer me!" Jezebel demanded.
"I'm a Seraph witch, like you and your mother. I lead her former Murder of Seraphi and therefore, I'm responsible for restoring order after you so violently killed her. We needed her to survive, to keep nature balanced. It's been decided that you're going to change that for us. You will bare her new life. And when Nature comes calling for a balance after her rebirth, you are of equal power and blood—strong enough to replace her in the afterlife."
She shook her head. "I won't let you force me to think this is all routine. You're violating me! You're going to make me die for something I don't believe in?"
"But you did kill her. You see, not only did you tear her open when you were born...you stole her magic. You, yourself, were not ever supposed to exist," bitterly, Alexis howled.
I rose a hand to her, begging her to hold her frustrations back.
Jezebel turned on her heel to face the young witch who'd spoke, staring at her directly. I see Alexis and Vida's brows furrow, the back of Jezebel's curly head freeze.
"What are you doing?" Panicked Alexis.
I pull on Jezebel's shoulder, making her nude body face me instead. She was holding her breath. There is no spell for this, no way to make her stop other than physical violence.
"Breathe," I hissed.
Her eyes reddened and blinked from dryness, her mouth and nose cut off from releasing her carbon dioxide.
"Breathe!" I screamed at her.
Jezebel's eyes began to roll up, and Paraya jumped at the chance
"Aripostatum immaculand o' vor denos!" She cried, hand on the back of Jezebel's head.
Jezebel promptly fell forward with sleep, right into my arms. I didn't so much as bend to catch her, letting her tenderly lay between my forearms.
"No raw foods for the next six months, remember. And certainly, no long distances. Good night Jezebel," I spoke softly, watching them take her back to bed. "Commence her examination. Quickly."
REBEKAH
October 13th
That morning, I awoke to an uneasy thought. 255,501 days. That included how many nights I went to bed believing in "Always and Forever." The fact of the matter is, we all had put so much faith into our bond that we never thought about how weak its joints were becoming... As weak as when we developed the vow—just children chasing each other with muddy hands in a Viking village in the North. It was good enough at first. We only needed each other and had no desire to invite others in to share our pain. Some of us changed.
By this point I was almost eight hundred years old. I'd done almost everything, seen everything, heard everything I had ever hoped to; this did not include any of my brothers' support of my aspiring visions of having my own house, my own husband, and my own children, mayhaps. I could do better than the Mikaelson family name had done for me, I thought.
In my mind, Elijah had the last say in what I could and couldn't do. He never told me along this always-and-forever ride that I couldn't fall in love or that I couldn't go and be on my own. He never would, or else he himself would be a hypocrite.
It was only months before this October that Elijah had met a witch he lovingly knew as Celeste, and he had been over the moon ever since. She was one of the few who "worked" under the governor and his son, my beloved Emil, and had earned her privileges as a citizen of New Orleans. She was beautiful, educated, virtuous, and soft-spoken. She was exactly as I had pictured a woman made for Elijah to be.
Of course, Klaus thought nothing of her but a nightly treat for Elijah. From the very start, I knew there was one thing about Celeste that would never sit right with Klaus: she was the lead in almost every witch-related happening around the city. Her coven was a pain in all of our asses, but there was not much to do about it when it was her hand Elijah had decided to ask for.
I'd known about it for a week. Though, Nik was totally absorbed in his own melodramatics, I saw the ring in Celeste's finger she so desperately hid at first in the crook of Elijah's arm in the street. They whispered, schemed, couldn't leave the door open—it became more and more obvious. It was only a matter of time until "always and forever" was tested like this.
"That isn't fair," Celeste exclaims.
Elijah rebuttaled, "Fair to who? To you? How can you not trust me? Once you become a part of this family, I assure you I can change the—"
"Not to me! To them! Elijah, you dote too much. The longer you let them rely on you, the less independent they become. I love that you want us to take care of your siblings, but you must know that...eventually it will end. How do you know they don't want to go their own way, too?"
What bull. Albeit, she was right. Togetherness, as in twenty-four-seven togetherness, was a sentencing to go stir-crazy. It made Niklaus violent and out of sorts when it became too much or too little, and the longer I put my dreams on hold, the less time I had to make it happen.
I stood with my back to the wall by Elijah's door, my embroidery in my hands as I listened.
Solemnly, she expressed, "It also...isn't fair to me. I don't have nearly as many freedoms here, Elijah, and you know that. I'm willing to abandon my coven, how can you not do the same for me with your family? You still have a chance to ease them into the idea of our marriage."
"Mexico, Celeste? How can that be any more salutary for us?" Elijah inquired.
I hear her hands clasp around the sharp squareness of his jaw. "We've been going over this for weeks. A month! It's because I have something planned, and I want you to be there when it happens. When our world changes. I want to keep you at my side."
"Tread carefully, mate. I've heard that one before," I heard the chime of Niklaus.
The eerie sound of enthusiasm on his voice made me hiccup in surprise, and I swear I could see all three of our hearts leaping from our chests to the floor.
I peered my head in to see that the connective door from Elijah's room to the kitchen's back staircase was impacted by the shape of Nik, leaning on the wall crowning.
"Niklaus, how long have you been standing there?" Elijah flatly shared his anxiety.
"Long enough," spat Niklaus. "So. What's this I hear about Mexico. Hm? Don't tell me you're eloping."
Say something, I pleaded in my mind when a profound silence slapped against my ears. I couldn't see Niklaus or his expression, but I knew by the soft exhale of someone in the room that it wasn't any good.
"We were thinking of having an official ceremony before we go. Here, with all of us," Elijah indirectly confirmed it.
My stomach knots like a boa constrictor is squeezing it into an hour glass shape.
"I see," Muttered Nik.
"Nothing is decided without speaking with you and Bekah priorly, Klaus. Perhaps, we should invite her to join this conversation," Celeste panicked.
Klaus advanced a step toward Celeste, who stood her ground as best she could in the face of an untrustworthy toad. "Oh, she's not going to miss much. I have to hand it to you, Celeste, whatever spell you have my brother under is really doing the trick. He's speaking nonsense."
"Is that what you think?" cried Celeste. "It can't possibly be that we've fallen in love?"
"Well, given you held off this long on such a strange secret, how can it last you? Face it. You've done him a round of favors, and by the time you're even at the altar—"
"Niklaus, that's quite enough," Elijah scolded our brother.
"You know, maybe we should bring Rebekah in here. See if she's with Emil. I can demonstrate in him what this family can do to leeches. I mean, witches," Niklaus threatened.
Elijah never failed to defend my own search for happiness and safety. "That's perfectly fine. Push her away, too, like you will me if you cannot accept my decision making. I fear I've truly lost all hope you'll ever understand the needs of others, Niklaus, even your own siblings."
"What is that supposed to mean?" Klaus barked.
Ranted Elijah, "I had to wait a month before I could include you in this! Do you have any idea how that kills me? To know my brother is capable of ruining my engagement let alone my right to independence?"
"Fine. Can you tell me why she wants to take you across the country and into a whole other continent? Has she told you?" Klaus anticipated foul play in this.
"...Have you ever considered New Orleans isn't the best place on earth to have a family? To have opportunities? It's because of who makes the rules. That is what always and forever boils down to. If your prejudice against witches is what has kept her from feeling safe here, maybe we have no choice." Elijah stirs, pacing past Klaus in blocking his line of view of Celeste.
"Well. Congratulations to you both," falsely, Klaus congratulated. "Just know. If you walk out that door, you'll have to walk on eggshells around my city. Because it will be trained to bite at your heels from then on, brother."
"Don't let it be like this," Elijah pleaded.
"You've made your choice. You've chosen to break off," Klaus assumed. "Consider my gift to you, a bride full of my blood."
"What—"
In a glance, he's behind Celeste, gnawing on her neck like a damned animal on a sheep carcass. She falls to the floor with a slight yelp, Elijah rushing to her side.
"You know where I stash the blood samples. Help yourselves," Klaus called out, "if there's any left."
JEZEBEL
Whenever I was sick in bed as a child, I would have this horrible cough that never seemed to cease. Sometimes, when I coughed too hard, my sides would hurt and my back would tense from the pain. Right at that moment, that was exactly what I was experiencing. I was stiffened by a mysterious soreness that, for once wasn't accompanied by a headcold, crippled me. That was only my body.
Talking about it was no option. I didn't know anyone and if I told the church, I'd be shamed for being a single mother and hating what I had. Thinking about it was just as hard. I was going to be torn apart in the same way I had torn apart Carmila—and if I didn't die from blood loss, or from Celeste's hands around my neck, then I'd die from shock.
If I couldn't change anything or find someone to help me, then I had to first stop panicking before I could understand what to do about my fate. I had to relax.
The current on the river was strongest on nights like this when the moon was as full as it could get. I thought about jumping, but the whole plan I'd made since I'd arrived was to stay alive as long as I could—be it for the next six months or six days.
I just loved the sound of running water, hitting sharp rocks and little tides rolling off each others' backs. My loose strands blew up towards the rooftops on the other side of the colossal river body. I tilted my head up towards the moon to keep them from blowing into my mouth. One big exhale, one cleared mind. I imagined the river parting for me until I could see all the pebbles, mud, and lost souls on its floors. I imagined it curling towards each other like the spirals on a striped housecat's coat.
Then, I stepped with my right foot. It touched the water, but the solid formation underneath it was as thick as air-blown glass. I walked with caution, eyes remaining closed until I felt my ankles start to sink little by little into the deeper running part of the channel.
My lashes fluttering to sprawl wide open, I saw the water had not parted but solidified to give me the floor I had wanted.
The last time I did this, I fell right through because I couldn't keep concentration. I never had the room to practice, and I guess that was one of the benefits of being on my own. No restraints on what I could and couldn't do.
I thought about the little white cross on the field in the labyrinth spell. I thought of it like some sort of omen. For me. For whatever was in me. If I hadn't known I was pregnant beforehand, and I had no idea of the consequences, I wondered what my father would have said. He wasn't particularly cruel or condescending or controlling, but he loved the word "honor." I knew I would have disappointed him. I was disappointing him. Perhaps, he sent me away without a clue as to where I would end up because he already knew. Would he do that...?
The drop in my focus almost knocked away the invisible walkway from my feet on the water's surface.
I simply couldn't remember anything at all between now and two years ago. This applied to most other things, like whether or not I knew the boy I'd killed well enough to tell him what was happening to me and who Celeste was. Perhaps, I once trusted the boy enough to tell him where I'd go; that would also mean I killed my only friend in this...
I was so damn guilty of everything even if it wasn't my fault or any sort of malice. Simultaneously, I somehow managed to take on a feeling of guilt for that girl buried in the field with little pink roses on the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. It was impossible for it to be true, nonetheless, maybe I should have said a prayer for her as I passed.
The nightly walk eventually wasn't working to uplift me anymore. I turned around and brought myself back onto the sloping offroad riverfront, picking my shoes back up and lacing them back onto my soaked feet as tight as their laces could draw.
When I sat up again and faced the shadowy indication of oncoming people, I was surprised to see but one I recognized. The vampire Klaus, a bottle in hand and shoulders arched inward slumped along the isolated riverside road, his sullen explain illuminated on one side of his face.
He did a double-take and nearly knocked himself backwards when he saw me sitting there, looking back at him.
"What are you doing?" I asked him.
In an intrigued slur, he repeated back to me, "What are you doing out here all by your lonesome?"
I stood up to get a better look at him and instead caught a whiff of moonshine coming off his clothing. It came with a dismal indication he was drinking to forget. I've always been too fucking empathetic for my own good. It somehow converted itself into a superpower. I felt greatly for the man.
"You're drunk," I sighed tediously.
He almost laughed like I'd made a joke.
"A necessity for having a decent night on the town. Call me impulsive," he charismatically replied. "What's say you join me?"
I pressed a reluctant hand against his imposing chest leaning on my arm. I blocked his hands from rounding my lower back. "I don't think it will do me any better than it has you."
"Oh, come down from your high horse. You don't appetize me. Let me prove it—"
And his head came close. I ducked.
"You shouldn't be out here. Let me walk you home," I intervened harshly.
He took his arm away from me as soon as I had begun to turn him back towards the rows of portside French Quarter homes and businesses.
Growling in opposition, Klaus assured, "I can navigate my own way home. I suggest you take your own advice before you bother me any further."
He was a neurotic drunk. It was ironic; I won't talk about it too much. But it put me in a panic. Regardless of how he and I started off, I knew what made even the undead and supernatural turn into a helpless mess. Heartache. Or denial. Sometimes, it was both. It ruined almost everything for me. I didn't wish that anyone else.
"Please, don't go alone," I blurted, grabbing his wrist again. "If you don't want to go there, then we'll go somewhere else."
Klaus wouldn't move. He was either high on his own wariness of me or plotting to run away at top speed. I pulled on his wrist twice or more.
"You know, I've spent a fair amount of my time divulging in my family's needs. Yet, they never can dance to the beat of any of my own expectations and values. Of course, the half-sibling always gets the last shred of decency."
He didn't really think that; I didn't share in his thoughts, but he wasn't technically of sound mind. I opened my mouth to stop him, but watching him put the cobalt bottle to his lips again, he spoke faster than I could form words after he'd swallowed.
"Elijah's been the captain of our ship since the dawn of time, and by far, his decisions have become no better than mine. We glorify him as the respectable one. He's a glutton, and he knows it! He's the glutton, not me. And Rebekah! Oh, Rebekah. I count you know. I've counted every single time she's tried to leave. Seventy-two. 'And I'll not come back' she says. Now feast your eyes! She's sympathizing over me. Staying, because she thinks I'm a monster who protects her heart-"
My hands quickly wrap around his head as I drive his tortured mind into a hibernation caused by my touch. My hands pulsate with heat as he suddenly falls onto me and trusts me with all his weight in my forearms.
KLAUS
October 14th
The most modern time I had experienced a dream state was when I was no older than twelve. I dreamt Mikael had given us all matching beds of flowers and asked us to lay in them until he told us to get up. For the entirety of the dream, we all lay in our seven itching bedsteads and waited. We saw the sun come out and fall out of sight more than once. And by the end of the dream, I looked over at my siblings and they each had rotted away to nothing in their purple-flowered places of rest.
It was the worst, needless to say, and for centuries I had faith in the idea that I had perhaps wished them away.
Last night, I had none other than one of these horrific dreams.
There was a girl walking towards me. I couldn't see her face, but the kinked ripples in her hair reminded me of the very first gentlewoman I'd adored and then disdained. The closer she came, I discovered she wasn't walking on anything but the water. In a matter of seconds, she'd come to stand in front of me and the sun was risen and all was bright. I thought I might have known this girl in my dream better than anyone, and I was ecstatic to see her. I was going to speak to her and ask her to stay until she reached up and grabbed the synthetic sun and burst into radiant red flames. When the sun had died, so had she. She had screamed, rotting to a tree of bones and wrapping her embered limbs around me. It was dark again when I woke.
The room was tinged by the grey overcast outside, leaving me with a calmer presence than the one in my head. Jezebel pressed her cold palm into my forehead to hinder me from sitting up too briskly.
I rejoiced in my foresight that the blackness of death wasn't authentic, but I was solemnly disgruntled by the feeling of confusion as to why I was back in the Miller house.
Her blank, dark-circled flash reminded me of one telling detail. She had knocked me unconscious.
Sitting on her knees beside the feather-splintered sofa, she set down a turquoise teacup next to my outstretched hand on the den's loveseat, I shot her my confident attention of distrust.
She scoffed at me. "No me mires como eso. As if I'd waste my time endeavoring to poison you. It's just coffee with fennel and rosemary. It won't help your headache, but you will think more clearly. It will be a first for you."
I eased my haste to sit up upon her clever knock against my ability to think.
"Given the circumstances by which you came, I wouldn't ignore previous threats on my life with like-structured herbs," I groaned.
Her hair was about to fall loose from its hastily braided styling behind her left ear. The metal comb by which she'd lain in the fireplace to straighten her curls still sat in a porcelain dish to cool. The sleekness of her locks made it harder to keep her style in place. I watched her pull an enormous pin from its slant and the alluring braid roll forward to unwrap. It was a thing of a moving portrait. "You were so inebriated last night, I would've taken my chances then. But you woke up this morning, no doubt only victimized by brain fog and embarrassment."
I sat up all the way, and she moved back on the small table to allow my knees the room to move.
"Am I to believe this was an act of empathy alone? Or were you praying I'd already forgotten you tried to shoot me at point-blank? I suppose I should be groveling with gratitude for that, as well."
"Well, it has to be empathy because I can aim and I can aim well," she suspired.
She tapped the side of the teacup with those luxurious sturdy almond nails, still lined with blood from our early spring cleaning. "If you finish that, maybe it will help get your head out of your ass before the Millers come back."
Taking a look around the desolate palette of gem tones in the emerald living room, I noticed the looming stillness in the house. There were no shoes by the back entry and no dirty dishes to be seen through the archway in the tiny kitchen area behind us.
"Wouldn't want them to discover your habit of letting strangers blackout on the furniture in your den," I mocked her, one brow pushing upwards.
She blinked slowly in the seconds-delay of her answer, eyes shifting towards the side of the room.
"They've gone hunting North of here. They shouldn't be back for a while," she informed me. "I know I'll have to move on soon, but I'd like to do so without being evicted for something like this. And for your interest, I hardly consider you a stranger."
Quenching my lips with my tongue, I looked down at my cup. "I'm suspecting there was something I said—"
Picking up the bowl she'd been using to chill her hands for my forehead, she bit her lips together before cutting me off. "Several things, but nothing unusual for a spoiled city boy."
She took her chances on saying such, but I still smile at her perception of me. Watching her retreat back into the kitchen area, she tosses the water out the window into the bushes and leaves it for cleaning later on.
Jezebel didn't occupy herself with ways to get me out or to rehash the prior battle between us. When she returned to my side, she sat down again with her elbows resting on her knees. She propped the ball of her palm under her chin and curled her fingers in while she marked the morning outside unfolding in hues of glittering yellow and cloudy silver.
The constant state of curiosity one could find in her face suggested that there was something more than me on her mind. I came upon the thought that I never questioned why Jezebel was out in the middle of the night, loitering in darkness all by herself. I could have been alright with assuming she was brooding on her purpose or simply waiting for the next mass murder to come along (ironic enough) and put her out of her misery.
Just the air, like a shadow on her back, about her spoke of genuine concern and preciseness in everything she did. It didn't help me that the same air was scented like cloves and amber overtaking tobacco—and was thrice as addictive.
I spoke, "It was near the early hours when I walked out on that pier. I count you were holding out for your outlaw ship to return."
Relinquishing her hand from her face, she turned herself back towards me. Her head followed the slow path of her shoulders, tearing away from the dewy day outside.
"I've decided to stay. It's the first time I've been on my own. I know my father can't always provide for me. I'm sure that's probably why he put me on that ship. It's better if it happens now," she shared.
I knew a rehearsed excuse when I heard one, even from a tender, somber voice as convincing as hers.
"So, he's the one who sent you adrift with a load of strangers?" I disputed.
Putting some hair behind her ear, she straightened her back and glanced at the carpet beside us.
"I don't know. I'll be honest, I'm missing a few things from my memory. But I know why I was out on the pier whe you came. I went out there because I was upset about something else. I was going to do something," she swallowed mid-sentence, "awful to take care of it."
Of course, I couldn't help but imagine the tragic suicide I could have resulted walking into. It wouldn't have sobered me, but it would have done well to astound me. From day one, this girl had made it clear she intended to pull herself out of hell by her front teeth or to take the next rascal down with her. I could have been missing something, but it would be hard to get the full story from a mere acquaintance who hadn't told me so much as her name and ultimate agenda.
Jezebel added, "When you came along, I didn't see why I should let you do anything as ridiculous."
"You are cognizant it makes no difference if I had walked off that pier?" I scoffed.
She smiled slightly. "Yes. But it's still painful each time, isn't it? Dying?"
I could have gone over the mechanics and thousands of sciences it took to explain the death of a vampire—I'm sure she would have been a fanatic for it had I already been aware of her obsession with the sciences—but for that moment, I was withholding my own vulnerabilities.
Instead, I invited, "If I hadn't been there, would you still have done it? This terrible thing?"
She seemed to laugh at the idea now, shaking her head at her own stupidity. "I think I would have deserved it, but I also think I am stubborn enough to have let freezing cold water stop me," she considered. "And I hope for your sake, whatever brought you to that pier passes you by, Niklaus. I'd be disappointed to see a worthy adversary unravel so easily."
She stood from her seat, her hand falling on my wrist and gliding off the cotton of my sleeve. The thin nails of her ring finger and pinky stimulated the skin over my thudding vein, the upright hairs on my arms reaching back.
"That's the thing about adversaries. Sometimes, they fold with the settle of a score," I told her, getting to my feet.
Jezebel met me at the door with my jacket, a thin smile rising and falling from her lips as she idled for me to put it on.
The button on the cuff taps against the rim of the crooked handcrafted foyer table, rattling something on top. That rattle came from a thick-banded ring, decorated with branches and vine-like shapes that connected to the feet of a capital M.
My heart skipped a beat, knowing it was just last Christmas that Rebekah had personally requested two more be made in its likeness for Elijah and myself. Elijah never took his off, mine sat in a drawer at home where it was restrained from contact with my painting supplies.
"Where did you find this?" I frowned, picking up the ring.
"The Miller's boy found it yesterday on the trails outside the you seen it before?" she answered.
I had. What I failed to understand was why Kol would ever leave it to rust in the rain and soil of the home he once embraced.
